Mad Games Tycoon – Game Development Guide

Overview

This Guide lists the Perfect Settings for each Genre, their ideal Target Markets, and Release Dates. (Now With Topics)Supports both the new 0-10 and old -/+ slider settings.Also contains a detailed breakdown of how Priorities work, increasing your chances of scoring 100% Reviews.

Introduction

Hello everyone.

In this Guide I will be going over the optimal settings for each part of the Game development process for each Genre. It is important to understand that while these may be best settings for each Genre, you won’t automatically get 100% Reviews. The reason behind this is the skills of your staff (or the lack thereof) that will need to be trained up to get consistently high scoring Reviews.

The starting Genres have been marked with ‘(Starter) *’ to make them easier to identify.

Slider Number Chart 0 to 10 (New / Simplified)

Slider Number Chart -5 to +5 (old / Complicated)

Chapter 1 – Adventure

Chapter 2 – Arcade (Starter) *

Chapter 3 – Building

Chapter 4 – Economic Simulation

Chapter 5 – Fighting

Chapter 6 – First-person Shooter

Chapter 7 – Interactive Movie

Chapter 8 – Platformer

Chapter 9 – Puzzle (Starter) *

Chapter 10 – Real-time Strategy

Chapter 11 – RPG

Chapter 12 – Simulation

Chapter 13 – Skill (Starter) *

Chapter 14 – Sports

Chapter 15 – Strategy

Chapter 16 – Third-person Shooter

Chapter 17 – Priorities

As of yesterday afternoon to the early hours of today, I’ve been working on this game. A great deal of it had to do with consistently achieving a 100% score, and trying to figure out what exactly was going on with Priorities, because I was drawing very inconsistent scores.

I’ve come to the conclusion that despite the clearly defined ‘optimal’ settings for Priorities, these aren’t actually set in stone, and are in fact more like suggested guidelines. This is supported ingame by the fact that there are no green ticks next to the Priorities in completed Game Reports, and Reports made of games with different Priorities, always default to the ‘optimal’ settings.

If that is true, then what are the ‘perfect’ settings?

The good news is that I’ve found the answer, the bad news is that it isn’t consistent, it’s tied to skills of your Employees and so not only changes between games, but also within the current game.

I have however found a decent work around that while requiring a little additional effort and some math skills, does consistently result in higher scoring games.

Things you will need: Pen or pencil, paper and a calculator, alternative you can use word or notepad, though if that’s the case I recommend playing in ‘Window Mode’ otherwise you’ll be Alt+Tabbing to the Desktop quite a lot.

Now comes the tedious part, typing/writing down all your Employees Skills and then adding them up.

I recommend making use of the Staff feature attached to individual rooms, and then going through the Skill lists as they appear, so ‘Game Design>Programming>Graphics>Music & Sound’.

Note: Your adding up one(1) skill of all Employees. Not all the skills of one(1) Employee. If you already understood that then that’s fine, but not everyone is mathematically savvy, and for those that aren’t it can be very easy to make a mistake.

Calculating the total Skill scores of my eight man cube, I get the following.

Game Design = 208.7 = Gameplay
Programming = 148.1 = Technology
Graphics = 164.5 = Graphics
Music & Sound = 178.3 = Sounds

Then order them from Weakest to Strongest, since stronger skills need less support.

1.) Programming = 148.1 = Technology
2.) Graphics = 164.5 = Graphics
3.) Music & Sound = 178.3 = Sounds
4.) Game Design = 208.7 = Gameplay

The next step would be to calculate percentages, which would requires more maths, alternatively you could just check the Priorities above and see if there’s a Genre that matches your specific Skill order. Remember that when you’re looking through the Guide you’re searching for the second word, not the first one.

Sadly there are no perfect matches, but FPS, and TPS are good matches that minimalise Gameplay and Sounds in favor of the other two. With the TPS optimal settings being Graphics 40, Sounds 25 Technology 20, Gameplay 15, I’d set them to these instead. Graphics 40, Sounds 15, Technology 40, Gameplay 5.

I’m using rough estimation, however it is possible to calculate a more accurate number and then carry that to the 5.

Chapter 18 – Specializations

Every character has a Genre Special and a Feature Special. These play a large part in how successful your game will be, and can be all the difference between an 80% and a 90% Review Score or a 90% and a 100% Review Score.

During Character Creation you can choose which Specializations your character can have. It is entirely up to you what you choose, but if you intend to have your character working in Development or Improvement Rooms, then you should choose a Genre and Feature you plan on using a lot. I almost always go for Sports and Internet Multiplayer, which are both released later on in the game.

When Hiring Staff for either Development or Improvement Rooms you should keep their Genre and Feature Special in mind. Taking care to avoid hiring staff whose Genre you are not using, and whose Feature is obsolete. At the start of the game when staff are few and far between, you won’t be able to afford being so picky, but as the game progresses, you’ll be able to slowly hire your desired staff pool, either culling off the chaff or delegating them Office Work positions.

When the late game rolls by you can have up to 35 Features in your games, by this time you should have (or aim to have) at least 35 Staff members in Development who each have a Specialization in one of those 35 Features.

Ultimately, if your in a position where you can cover all those Features with a Specialist by excluding Features from the game, then this is the preferred route to success. Staff in Development who have a Specialized Feature that isn’t in the current game should also be removed from the room. If their Feature Special is outdated, as mentioned above, you should consider firing them or sending them to work somewhere else that doesn’t involve Game Development, like Customer Support or Marketing.

Updates

Update 1 – Added Supporting Genres
Update 2 – Combined Tables
Update 3 – Added Table Spacing Between Subjects
Update 4 – Added Title Shorthand to Supporting Genres
Update 5 – Added Target Markets
Update 6 – Added Target Markets to Chapter Titles
Update 7 – Added Target Markets to Supporting Genres
Update 8 – Added All Target Markets
Update 9 (03/05/2016) – Reversed some previous changes to make the Guide more streamlined and removed the absent Chapter 13 joke.
Update 10 (07/06/2016) – Expanded the Introduction to be a bit more informative.
Update 11 (22/06/2016) – Added Configuration Slider Chart.
Update 12 (23/08/2016) – Changed all instances of “Jump & Run” to “Platformer”, and removed “Game” from several Genre titles.
Update 13 (23/08/2016) – I’ve added special marks to the starting Genres to make them easier to pick out. I’ve also started adding the “Release Date” of the Genres, and the additional “Age Rating” to each Genres’ “Target Market”.
Update 14 (24/08/2016) – I’ve added ‘Chapter 17 – Priorities’ and expanded it’s content significantly.
Update 15 (24/08/2016) – I’ve added the old the numbering system to the Guide, I hope the old Greybeards of the Community appreciate the effort. 😛
Update 16 (27/08/2016) – Finished adding Genre Release Dates, Dual Target Markets, and overhauling the structure of the Guide.
Update 17 (19/09/2016) – Started adding preffered Topics.
Update 18 (26/09/2016) – Fixed the Arcade Target Market, deleted the Preffered Topics Chapter, and started adding the Perfect Topics into each Chapter in alphabetical order.
Update 19 (27/09/2016) – Finished adding Perfect Topics for Adventure, Arcade, Fighting, Platformer, Puzzle, Real-time Strategy, RPG, Simulation, Skill and Sports.
Update 20 (27/09/2016) – Finished adding the Perfect Topics for Building, Economic Simulation, First-person Shooter, Interactive Movie, Strategy and Third-person Shooter.
Update 21 (10/10/2016) – Removed the “Masters Guide” link from “Chapter 18 – Specializations” and wrote in a reworked version of what was in my other Guide.
Update 22 (21/06/2017) – Added slider image for the old outdated marking system, for the curious.
Update 23 (10/04/2020) – Fixed Arcade Supporting Target Market in all other Chapters.

Epilogue

For the Greater Good, please Like, Favorite & Follow.

If you found my Guide useful or simply enjoyed reading it, then why not join my Guide Makers Club? It’s a group dedicated to helping would-be Guide makers, but if you liked my Guide and want to see me make a Guide for a specific game, then you can make a request there.

Cheers!